The moment you realize that there might just be a better life for you somewhere else, life gets exciting again. You may have had a friend recently mention an advertisement they read or saw on TV, or you may have come across something about living in another country on the internet, maybe International Living or storiesbygary.com. 😉 However it happened, your interest was tweaked. Now where do I start.

View from your cabana

This happened to me, but the start of my curiosity was with good friends that had actually experienced this first hand many years ago, and moved to Belize. They had loved the country and its people, food, culture and of course, scuba diving. Why did they leave and return to the U.S. ? They had moved there and bought an older hotel/restaurant. The plan was to work and enjoy life, but as things would have it, it turned into all work and no life.

If your looking for a better life, changing to one where all you do is work your ass off shouldn’t be it!

A Picture is worth a thousand words..right?

Lucky for meI was intrigued by Belize for a plethora of reasons. They speak english, use the U.S. currency, don’t drive cars (for the most part), eat good stuff, not the crap we eat in the states, and their banks have to have on hand at least 50% of their cash liquid at all times. Sure wish we were even close to that in the U.S. And that good stuff they eat? fresh fish, shellfish, fruit and veggies, all year long.

In addition, it stays in the 80’s all year, with a few months of tropical rain, still in the 80’s. Its a friendly population I had been told, welcoming folks from the U.S., Canada and elsewhere. I decided I really needed to see all this myself, so off to reservations I went. Luckily, I was planning this discovery tour during the rainy time of year, you know, tropical storm and hurricane season. I wanted to see Belize at its worse. An added benefit to this was during the off season, resorts drop prices, and in my case with my journalist discount, I was able to book excellent rates at my resort which I would spend two weeks at following my discovery tour of Sanctuary Belize.

Make sure you do your due diligence when selecting a resort or condo to stay at, based on reviews, prices, and location. I decided that I didn’t want to stay in San Pedro, the main town on Ambergris Caye, but rather 7 miles up the coast at a resort called X’Tah Na, mainly because of reviews, and the fact it is well known to have the best beach on the island. This my friends was a basic requirement of my wife, as everyone knows, you keep Mama happy, and you are happy.

Being 7 miles out of town by the way, is no real issue, because everyone travels by water taxi. These fast transportation boast run all day into the evening and take you to other resorts for restaurants, or into town for nightlife, tours, etc.

The X’tah Na Resort

We flew directly into San Pedro where our driver in the met us and brought us to the dock where we boarded out “taxi” to the resort. Fifteen minutes later, there we were pulling up to the dock at a resort I could pick out of amy lineup, for its brightly colored buildings of blue, greek, red, yellow and so on. As we pulled up to the dock I could see a beautiful sandy beach, people in the water snorkeling, and a local dude, who I would learn was one of the bartenders, Hill, with a couple tall fruity rum cocktails in his hands. Yep! This was the place for sure, X’tah Na Waterfront Resort.

Just what the doctor ordered!

After a short check in time, off came the clothes and out to the beach we went, yes! with suits on of course! That first afternoon was spent relaxing in lounge chairs, the water, and the poolside bar. We knew it was going to be a busy two weeks checking out Ambergris Caye and Caye Calker, so resting up with constant injections of Belizean Rum was called for that first day, and night too.